Why?

It happens all the time. I’ll be in the waiting room of a doctor’s office, or standing in line at the bank and I pull out a pair of needles and a ball of yarn. Or when I’ve set up my spinning wheel in a café or even on my front porch to spin for an hour and enjoy the day. Inevitably someone will ask, “What are you doing?”

That question is easy to answer. “Knitting,” I’ll say. Or “Spinning.”

Having gotten an answer the passerby will continue. “What are you making?”

“Socks,” or “a shawl,” I’ll reply. If I’m spinning, the answer will be “yarn.”

Then comes the tough one. The question that all the previous questions have led up to: “Why do you do that when you can buy [socks] at [box store] by the bag?”

At this point I stop what I’m doing. I know, from past experience that I will need all of my concentration if I’m going to have a whisper of a chance making someone who doesn’t work with their hands understand.

“Because nothing fits like something that’s been made for you,” I offer. I then go on to explain the qualities of wool: keeping you warm, but not making you sweat and staying warm even if they get wet. And then I’ll go on to the joys of alpaca, a softer and lighter and warmer fiber has yet to be discovered.

I check to see if their eyes have glazed over yet, and if not, I will go on to explain that we live in a time when we’re bombarded by high tech toys. We get our exercise playing virtual tennis in front our flat screen TV’s in the living room instead of out on a tennis court with real people. In this electronic morass I feel a deep need to connect with a time that was simpler, to feel something tangible, real under my fingers.

If they’ve stayed with me so far, we’ll get to the real reason, because working with fiber connects me to the past. When I pick up the needles I think about the women in my life who have gone before me. My Nana, dead these 44 years, who taught me to crochet (and knit) before I was five years old. My Great Auntie Rae, who crocheted lace edging on the borders of plain cotton handkerchiefs (because ladies always had lace handkerchiefs), my mother, who both crocheted and knit and when I didn’t remember what my Nana had taught me, patiently showed me again…and again.

And later, after my mother had stopped knitting, and I had picked it up again with a vengeance, she gave me all of her knitting needles and yarn. Some of those needles had been my grandmother’s, some her’s, and one slightly rusted steel crochet hook had been my Great Auntie Rae’s.

None of these women are alive anymore, but they live on in the work the had done.

I have a white cotton handkerchief with blue lace edging.

I have a burnt orange sweater jacket that my mother wore throughout my childhood (and she never failed to mention how her mother had knit it for her on a very long circular needle).

I have a sweater that my mother had knit for a grandson.

These aren’t just handcrafted items. They are bits of knitted (and crocheted) love. In each of these is a part of the woman who created it. Her thoughts, her hopes, her love for the person who would be gifted with the garment.

Each time I pick up the needles, I think about what I’m making. I think about who it will be given to. Or, I think about the women who taught me to do it.

It’s these connections, and the connections to women and men all over the world, throughout the generations, who create bits of knitted love — clothing their families, keeping the people they love warm — that keeps me making endless loops with yarn, and why I’ll keep doing it as long as I can hold the needles.

13 Responses

My Grandma Pat knit sweaters for all the grandchildren. Eventually, there were enough of us that she couldn’t keep up w/o a knitting machine. I wish I had a few to show my wife, an avid knitter herself but they are all gone now. You are very lucky to have inherited these tangible reminders of your family’s craft.

Great explanation, and certainly a great motivation. I’ve never understood the reason for the question in the first place. I would never question why someone wants to fish, or carve wood, or cook. The reasons seem perfectly clear to me… said action brings the doer comfort, joy, and a sense of satisfaction. The answer is, in essence, universal.

I’m a quilter, so I get that all the time. “Why do you cut fabric up just to sew it together
again?”
Well, because I enjoy it, I use it as an artistic expression, and nothing feels as warm as a quilt I’ve made for my family.
Some people just will never get it!

Great article! I think knitting (along with a myriad of other handicrafts) reminds us of all those connections that once were very apparent when extended families weren’t strewn across the continent. I remember visiting with my great aunts regularly and watching them knit and crochet, holding the yarn while they wound it. I wish I paid more attention then, and when my mother tried to teach me to knit….now my children are growing up quite distanced from their grandparents and extended families. When I knit, I feel the connection to generations past, and remember a few more of the stories to share with them. It is the “thread” that binds us….

I agree! In fact I just posted about how the “old ways” are calling to me.. My great grandmother taught me to crochet when I was a very small girl. My mother tells me she also had a spinning wheel.. I now I have one and wish I had hers.

I love this post! I get those questions all the time too, but even more so since Im a “young knitter” (24). So in addition to the “what are you doing”, “why are you doing it?” questions, I also get “aren’t you kind of young for that!?” and “isnt that for old ladies”. . .
sigh.

What do you say to, “How do you do that?” As I had commented in a more recent post, I make all-twine knotted Rosaries. When people see me making one they of course ask, “What are you doing?” and I reply, “Making a Rosary,” and then I will show them a completed one and they will eventually ask, “How do you do that?” It’s really easy for me so I typically say, “It’s just a bunch of knots,” but really, I suppose, there is so much more that goes into it — there’s thought and concentration, a little bit of prayer. “It’s just a bunch of knots,” doesn’t seem like the right answer … when I have shown people how you make a knot they will say, “Can I try?” and if I give them a scrap piece of twine to make their own they say, “Oh no, I just want to try and make one, can’t I make the next knot? You can just take it out afterwards.” How would you answer if someone asked, “Can I try to make the next row?”

Adrianne: As to how to answer the first question (how do you do that), I’d say: “I manipulate string with knots at regular intervals, using the traditional spacings and numbers (etc.)… and lots of prayerful thought.”

As to the second question (can I just make the next one), I’d say: “I’m sorry, much as I’d like to, the piece is very spiritual, and every action I take to make it is done with prayer and intention, but I’d be happy to show you on a piece of scrap twine.”

Because to be honest, most of the time a knitter would answer no to the second question as well. It’s akin to asking for a bite of a stranger’s food, just to see what it tastes like… very personal. If it’s a friend, I probably wouldn’t mind letting them try a stitch, but it depends on the project. The lace shawl I’m working on right now? No way!